Some unknown friend whom Gutzon always identified privately as Sam Insull set out a Diesel engine for him at a town in the western part of the state. For two years it furnished all the power needed not only to run the air compressors and drills on the mountain but the pumps of the Holy Terror Mine as well. A Wyoming company was started and Gutzon, on the promise of electricity for less than his own plant would furnish it, agreed to shut down. Shortly before the day scheduled for the unveiling of the Washington head the power company informed him that he must sign a contract to use the company’s electricity for twenty years or be cut off. Gutzon snorted and turned to the Diesel engine. But there was no hope from that source. Somebody had dismantled it and carried away most of the movable parts.

Commissioner John Boland rushed out from Rapid City and thereafter Gutzon bought power from the new company. But he refused to sign the twenty-year contract. The cost of the power was a matter of bitter discussion forever after.

Lincoln came to the mountain in 1932 and worked two years without pay. Gutzon trained him to do the “pointing,” which consists of measuring the models and locating their enlargements on the rock. It is the direct translation of the work of the artist from studio to the material which he will cut, and Lincoln was carefully prepared.

Gutzon declared that Lincoln was a master of this work, understanding its complicated mathematics, and father had confidence in son. Under him a staff of three assistants served as a “pointing crew” for the measurement of all models to be enlarged on the mountain. When not measuring they acted as aids and guides to the drillers. The instructions given to Lincoln at one period when the sculptor’s arrival at Rushmore was delayed indicate the dramatic quality of the work. The sculptor instructed his son thus:

I want you, in beginning the work and allotting the positions to the men, to avoid the two finished faces completely. Do not touch the hairlines around the face of Washington or his chin, or under his chin. Do not approach the face lines of Jefferson, or to the side of his face or under his chin.

On Photograph No. 1, I have drawn a circle where you can locate Payne

I have marked Lincoln’s eye. You can put two men in cages in each of the eyes. I would use Anderson on the one side and Bianco on the other, putting Bianco where the feldspar streaks run down, and Anderson on the outside. I would give Payne, with Bianco, a position on the nose and have them begin to take off stone by drilling in squares and breaking it off down to within six or seven inches of the finished surface. But do not try to cut the eyelid or eyeball. Make a round mass for each of these. Lincoln’s face in that way will take up probably six more men.

You can put about three men on the Roosevelt stone, marking carefully the contour of Lincoln’s face so that none of that is disturbed, and going back into the hole next to Jefferson’s face as deep as you can. If you can put any men down on the block that I have marked No. 8, without any danger of tools and stone falling on them, all right. I would put about three men down on the big crag. We still have seventy or eighty feet to take off that. I think this will keep you busy until I get there.

It did.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CONVERSATION